Our Priest Is Gluten Free. How Does That Work?

[ContemporaryCaflicCrusader]

The host has to be bread.  Right?!?  Can they make gluten free host's that are bread.  How do I explain this to non Catholic friends without sounding angry.  I mean He can't consecrate carrot cake.  It's got to be bread non a subsitute.  But what do they do to it/ is the difference.  This friend is a real chef he will know much more bout this than I ever can.  Is this in the wrong section??? maybe under Q and A?  Apologies if it is.  Seems like the Mods get plenty of work around here, hate to add to it.  Appreciate help here. 

[Autumn Dusk]

There are acceptable very low gluten hosts.  

 

 http://www.altarbreadsbspa.com/lowgluten.php

 

It appears to be accepted by the US bishops...I can't speak to other countries

[arfink]

It's unusual for people to have celiac so bad that a tiny piece of a host will give them major issues. The priest is not required to eat the whole host either, he could just have a tiny bit so as to receive under both species, IIRC, although I imagine Cappie would know better than I would. Receiving communion can just be a tiny bit. I imagine a priest could do that.

[Basilisa Marie]

Yeah, he'd receive a tiny piece of a low-gluten host. It has to have gluten for it to count as bread. 

 

This article here outlines the guidelines for bread and wine pretty clearly.  http://www.celiac.com/articles/285/1/Celiac-Disease-and-the-Catholic-Churchs-Position-Regarding-Communion/Page1.html

[ContemporaryCaflicCrusader]

very interesting. thank you. 

[Basilisa Marie]

There is a boy at my former school who had a very intense gluten allergy. He couldn't eat even a small amount, yet every Sunday and every school mass he received. He had no symptoms whatsoever. Really cool

 

Two kids at my home parish are like that.  My mom runs the kid's faith formation, and told the families that it'd be perfectly fine for the kids to receive under the species of wine only...but the kids begged their parents to let them receive the bread as well, at least for their first communion.  So the parents relented, and prepared for a night of upset stomachs...but nothing bad happened.  Whether it's a Eucharistic miracle or just that the small amount of gluten doesn't affect them, it's still really, really cool. :) 

[ContemporaryCaflicCrusader]

He can't use any toaster but his own cuzza gluten.  Makes me curious.  I believe you but it gets harder and harder to trust this priest (Slash guy who signs my paychecks)

[Autumn Dusk]

Two kids at my home parish are like that.  My mom runs the kid's faith formation, and told the families that it'd be perfectly fine for the kids to receive under the species of wine only...but the kids begged their parents to let them receive the bread as well, at least for their first communion.  So the parents relented, and prepared for a night of upset stomachs...but nothing bad happened.  Whether it's a Eucharistic miracle or just that the small amount of gluten doesn't affect them, it's still really, really cool. :)

 

I have a friend who's that way with wine.  Normal wine gives him an instant, crippling migraine ..to the point where those desserts with a splash of wine not properly burned/baked off can debilitate him.  But he can drink as much communion wine as he wants.  He was once at a mass where an elderly priest made a bit too much and he was asked to help consume more...he didn't even have a twinge of a headache.

[Basilisa Marie]

I have a friend who's that way with wine.  Normal wine gives him an instant, crippling migraine ..to the point where those desserts with a splash of wine not properly burned/baked off can debilitate him.  But he can drink as much communion wine as he wants.  He was once at a mass where an elderly priest made a bit too much and he was asked to help consume more...he didn't even have a twinge of a headache.

 

Doesn't sacramental wine have a low alcohol content? Or is my brain making that up? 

[Autumn Dusk]

Doesn't sacramental wine have a low alcohol content? Or is my brain making that up? 

 

I don't think so...it's ordinary wine but it is mixed with a considerable amount of water.  Still, I know that you can get a buzz because I know a young priest afraid of running out who accidentally did when he "made" too much and then had to drink it all. 

[beatitude]

He can't use any toaster but his own cuzza gluten.  Makes me curious.  I believe you but it gets harder and harder to trust this priest (Slash guy who signs my paychecks)

 

Why should this make it hard for you to trust him? There are very low-gluten hosts available for people with coeliac disease (some parishes say in their bulletin that any person requiring this should make themselves known to the priest before Mass). That is for people who can't take even a tiny scrap of gluten without getting poorly, but as other people have pointed out, the gluten in normal hosts is so low anyway that many people with coeliac are OK with it.

[truthfinder]

The communion wine I have seen actually had a good alcohol content: 12-15% if I remember correctly. 

[Autumn Dusk]

He can't use any toaster but his own cuzza gluten.  Makes me curious.  I believe you but it gets harder and harder to trust this priest (Slash guy who signs my paychecks)

 

Being careful about cross-contamination is not an easy task.  If gluten allergies showed up like nut allergies we probably wouldn't be so callus.  Instead, most times it just gives you the screaming mee-mees.

[LinaSt.Cecilia2772]

My former pastor had a gluten allergy too and he had one of them in the paten for him when he consecrated. He had many allergies including wine so he had to only do a little bit of that too. 

 

I know the wine my parish uses is 18% alcohol.

[ContemporaryCaflicCrusader]

Why should this make it hard for you to trust him? There are very low-gluten hosts available for people with coeliac disease (some parishes say in their bulletin that any person requiring this should make themselves known to the priest before Mass). That is for people who can't take even a tiny scrap of gluten without getting poorly, but as other people have pointed out, the gluten in normal hosts is so low anyway that many people with coeliac are OK with it.

 

Any priest that is notorious for purposefully stomping out good Pro life groups in every parrish he has ever been in makes me a little leary.   He even apologized for our Deacon's pro life homily completely in line with Church teaching and promised the parish he would never do that again.  Since then Deacon has not done a homily.  That was in September.  But at least the praise and worship band sounds good :vomit: .  And seriously I am told this guy is a real serious Celiac.  Like vomit for weeks over the smallest incidents.  I might ask him about it, but I am not sure I dare.